


The Girlfriend Chronicles

by PianistHands



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 2.7k, F/M, I am writing this as a "gift" to Jo, I really hope you like it because it was hard to write and I felt really weird writing it, Johnlock Fluff, M/M, because I'm not sure if it's any good, first work in the fandom, i guess, this is my first actual fic/ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:36:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2693213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PianistHands/pseuds/PianistHands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson was an expert in how all bodies worked, no matter if you were male, female, or somewhere in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girlfriend Chronicles

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first actual work for the fandom. I am writing this for my friend Jo aka shaggingshezza on Tumblr. I can't link it because I'm on my surface right now, but she is amazing and I love her.

John Watson was an expert in how all bodies worked, no matter if you were male, female, or somewhere in between. He could wrap all of your symptoms with a pretty bow and diagnose you in under five minutes, but he could also unravel you with only his tongue and put you back together again afterwards with a warm embrace. He wasn’t too keen on leaving in the morning without saying goodbye and he wouldn’t break your heart just because the two of you “weren’t connecting,” but instead he would let you down so gently that you would feel like he was going to come back the next day. This all led up to the day when he met Sherlock Holmes; the day he became solely focused on gaining the love and trust of one person without even realizing it. 

GIRLFRIEND NO. 1: SUSAN M. GREATHEN  
Susan was nice enough. She volunteered at the local animal shelter and she went to help out at the food pantries and soup kitchens on the weekends. She taught primary school and took art classes for fun. John thought that she was interesting, but something was missing. Still, he took her on classic romantic dates until he took her home to meet Sherlock. Of course, she had already known that Sherlock was going to be difficult, as with the constant pestering via text whenever they went out, but neither John nor Susan knew that he would be so terrible when they first met…  
John had started out carefully, approaching him at his microscope with care and silence. “Sherlock, meet Susan. As you know, we’ve been dating for a few weeks now,” He hadn’t even finished what was going to be a brief introduction before Sherlock began turning away. “And I… Sherlock, are you listening?” Sherlock’s head snapped back to the couple.  
“John, you can’t expect me to sit here and be interested in this already dull conversation when I know all that you’re about to tell me.” John opened his mouth slightly before reconsidering and closing it again. “For example, Susan here is in her late twenties which means there is a significant difference between your age and hers. She owns four cats and one dog, all adopted within the same window of time. She lives in a small flat next to a flower shop, but she’s allergic to pollen. She’s considering moving, but can’t find anywhere to live that is within her price range. She’s come close to asking you or her mother if she can share a flat with you, but she hasn’t got the nerve to do it as she’s too quote-on-quote nice to do it. Yet, if she were as nice as she seemed, she wouldn’t already be cheating on you with the married principal of the school she teaches at.” He turns around on his stool, leaving John stunned (as always) and Susan blushing furiously.  
“Well! Well… well, I never! I have never been so offended in my life. Why in the world would I cheat on such a splendid man? He takes me under his wing and treats me like an angel and you dare say that I would have the audacity to cheat on him?” The woman was obviously trying to provoke Sherlock. Her voice was calm, but it had a slight sternness about it that was unnerving. She was one of those people who spit while she talked, which was quite disgusting, but John didn’t care. He was too busy trying to figure out who to trust in this situation. He knew that he should be able to rely on Sherlock, but Susan just didn’t seem like she’d be the type to cheat. With that in mind, John turned Susan around, told Sherlock he’d see him later, and walked out of their flat without another word.  
John’s mind was racing as he tried to come up with some sort of an apology, but ended up going back to the only thing he could actually say to anyone who has gone through an emotionally scarring meeting with Sherlock Holmes. “Sorry for him. He’s a bit of an arse most of the time. It can’t be helped.” Susan then nodded slightly, kissed John on the cheek, and left the dimly lit street, heading home.  
John spent that night, lying in bed and trying valiantly not to think about the Susan situation. Susan also spent that night lying in bed, but it was not her own and she was not alone. Sadly, John did not know this, but he had decided it would be foolish not to listen to Sherlock Holmes, so he spent the next three hours fretting about how to let Susan down softly. Susan, however, was ready to crush him with the palm of her hand, but decided it best to let John work it out on his own and then to pretend to be disappointed when he broke up with her, even though she really wouldn’t be. What would another lost boyfriend be?  
Susan called John the next day to plan early morning window shopping, a late lunch, and possibly a movie night afterwards and John whole heartedly accepted. They met outside of 221B later on that morning and began their walk. They seemed happy, but they didn’t hold hands and they stood a respective distance away from each other. John put off the break up until after their lunch. He had walked her out to the nearest street bench, sat her down, and then began talking.   
His voice was light and quiet even though their topic of conversation was rather devastating. He told her that he didn’t think they were meant to be together and that that probably meant that she had someone better waiting somewhere for her and when she asked him in a whisper if he had someone better to go to or to be with, he said that he wasn’t sure.

GIRLFRIEND NO. 2: Helen R. Quintin  
Helen was very obviously interested in John from the moment they met. She thought John was a golden boy and she wanted to absolutely destroy him. Helen was dark haired and dangerous, exactly what John wanted, but she never stopped being dangerous. Helen liked to try to bring “spark” into their relationship. She took John to sex clubs she worked at when she was younger and to abandoned buildings hidden in alleyways where everyone around knew her name. Men and women alike stared after her when she walked past and she always turned around to drop a wink at the lucky ones. Helen was dominant and dangerous in the bedroom which was confusing to John, mainly because he wanted to be the dominant one in bed and this caused more problems than he would like to admit.   
He didn’t notice how hopeless their relationship was until a month and a half into it. Sherlock had gone to Bart’s to meet Molly so the house was empty except for the couple on the sofa. The two had been talking quietly as Helen took slow drags from a cigarette, even though John had told her specifically that he didn’t like smoking inside, but she disregarded it. Helen lifted up her left foot and stubbed the cigarette out on the heel of her boot before throwing herself into John’s lap. Within minutes they were running to John’s room, trying not to laugh as they both stumbled up the stairs.   
Sherlock had just been getting back home fifteen minutes after the rambunctious couple had left the sofa and walked into the foyer to be greeted by the sound of shouting from upstairs. He sighed heavily before greeting Ms. Hudson and going to complete the experiment left on the kitchen counter.   
It took another half hour for John and Helen to come back downstairs in some sort of general peaceful state, but John’s left hand was in a fist at his side and Helen was biting the inside of her cheek. John walked into the kitchen and his face reddened as he realized that Sherlock had to have overheard some of their conversation. He sat down and propped his elbows up on the counter as he waited for Sherlock to start talking. “You know, John, she wouldn’t be so terrible if she cared about your relationship as much as you do.” So it began.   
“Sherlock, listen, she cares. Don’t you, Helen?” His voice rose slightly as he tried to get Helen to understand that if she didn’t agree, Sherlock could, and quite possibly would, break down her entire life story until she was a crying heap on the floor. Helen nodded slightly, but refused to make eye contact with either of the men. Sherlock chuckled quietly before looking at Helen.   
Sherlock kept quiet for a few more moments. “John, please try to talk to Helen before you take her home tonight.” Sherlock looked at John, then to Helen, and then back at his notes. Of course, he felt a bit sorry for John, but he didn’t care all too much. It’s just another girlfriend lost.  
Once outside, John stopped Helen. “I think he might be right. I need to talk to you even though I really want to deny what I’m about to say.” He paused, as if waiting for her permission to continue, but when nothing was said, he pushed on. “I was thinking, Helen, that we should probably end this. We fight all the time and I can never get your attention. I don’t want to be in a relationship with you if I can’t treat you with the love and respect you deserve.” With that, Helen gave him a short hug, said thank you, and left. John wasn’t that upset. She wasn’t meant for him and he knew that, he just wished that he could keep someone interested for more than one month. With a heavy sigh, John turned around and went upstairs. He always went back; back to Sherlock, back to where he knew he wouldn’t mess anything up.

GIRLFRIEND NO. 3: Anne J. Malcom  
Anne was everything John wanted in a woman, as far as he could tell. She was stubborn and smart. She smelled like flowers and her blonde hair went all the way down past the middle of her back. Her laugh was adorable and she was warm and inviting. He was sure he loved her. He was convinced that she was the one for him. She liked him just as much as he liked her and, best of all, he was sure that she wouldn’t hate Sherlock. There was no downside to Anne. She was wonderful. John just couldn’t figure out why he felt like there was still something that he was missing, some hole in his heart that just couldn’t be filled.   
Sherlock actually seemed to like Anne when they first met. He didn’t say much, as he was preoccupied with his violin and the late night hustle on the streets below. Anne wasn’t in a rush to get John into her bed, she wasn’t looking for his money, she wasn’t already cheating on him; she was just there. Anne was kind of like a protective blanket. She was there for him when he needed to get out of the flat because Sherlock was working on his last nerve and she let John go off about Sherlock for hours on end because he did something absolutely brilliant or he left some assorted body part in the fridge again. She didn’t say much about herself or her family, but John wasn’t bothered by that because he figured that she would tell him when she was ready. That was part of her charm. John had always listened to his girlfriends. He never got to talk about his problems, but that wasn’t a problem for him because he didn’t mind listening. He always enjoyed helping people with their problems, no matter how personal. That’s why he loved being a doctor, no matter how much it drove him up the wall. He thought that their relationship was absolutely perfect, but, as it always was, she did not and neither did Sherlock.   
“…I swear he cares more about you than he does about our relationship! There has never been a date where he wasn’t talking about you.” Anne’s voice was lowered to a whisper, but it was like she was trying to shout.   
“Anne, you’ll wake him.”  
“Wake him? He can sleep over practically anything. Just today I was trying to get him up, but he didn’t even move an inch. I even resorted to flicking him a few times! Didn’t move.”  
Sherlock chuckled for a few moments before becoming quiet again. There was a light creaking coming from upstairs and Sherlock realized that John had been up for at least a small portion of their conversation. He turned to Anne with wide eyes and put a finger to his lips. Anne lifted herself up from her stool and ran upstairs to greet John.   
“Anne, do you really think that I care more about Sherlock than you?” John sounded shocked and sad. When he woke up and Anne wasn’t there, he expected that Anne had just left. Although the initial feeling was horrible, he realized that Anne would be back eventually because he knew that she wouldn’t leave him like that without an explanation. That’s when he heard the hushed voices coming from downstairs.  
“I didn’t mean it like that. I know that you care for me and you care about our relationship, but you never stop talking about Sherlock and I feel like you just have a few things you need to work out on your own. Also, I don’t want to lose touch with you. I love you and you love me, but I don’t think we love each other in the same way. You love me because I make you feel comfortable and safe, I love you because you’re secure and you make me feel less lonely. The thing is, John, we can’t just pretend that it’ll be okay to continue living like this when we both know we just use each other as protection from the truth.” Anne’s voice was strong, like she was convinced that what she was saying was the truth and John agreed. He hadn’t consciously been obsessing over Sherlock, but he couldn’t deny that the “genius ice man” persona Sherlock had created for himself was melting away slowly. John knew that sometimes he spent too long staring at Sherlock when he was asleep on the sofa in the soft morning light, and he knew that he probably shouldn’t lie awake at night and consider what he could do to impress Sherlock. This realization hit John like a brick. He had spent too long subconsciously pining after Sherlock to notice that he had been forming actual feelings for him.  
“Anne, I think I just noticed something that has been staring me in the face for a long time and it’s kind of stressing me out, but I may need to do something about it immediately.” Anne nodded and declared their relationship officially over before hugging John and gathering up her things to leave.

BOYFRIEND NO. 1: William S. S. Holmes   
William ‘Sherlock’ Holmes had never been perfect and he never would be, but John loved him with all of his heart. John loved his arrogant attitude and his stupid superiority complex. He loved going to crime scenes with Sherlock, even though he didn’t love being left behind by the man half of the time. John hated seeing heads in the fridge and he especially hated having to search for the leftovers through clear containers of bodily fluids and the such-like, but he loved seeing Sherlock deep in concentration and he loved the look of satisfaction that graced his beautiful features when he came to the conclusion he was hoping for.   
Sherlock loved John Hamish Watson just as much, if not more. He loved John even though he was quite an idiot at times. He loved when John defended him without a second thought when someone called him ‘freak.’ Even though Sherlock hated being forced into social outings, he loved watching John laugh with a slight blush on his face due to intoxication. He hated all of John’s stupid girlfriends (except for Anne, who he loved dearly), but he loved when John took Sherlock’s face in his hands and kissed him until he couldn’t remember his own name.   
They loved each other, no matter how stupid the other was, and that was all John could think about when he stomped into the kitchen and pulled Sherlock Holmes’ mouth down to meet his own in the most passionate and loving kiss he had ever experienced.


End file.
